England player ratings

Strauss - 7. Looked good for a big score but wrongly given out. Pretty blatantly too.

Cook - 6.5. Scored 60 but was lucky. Doesn't look like the same batsman as the one who did so well on debut all that time ago.

Vaughan - 6.5. Got a jaffa from Steyn but captained well.

Pietersen - 9. Was top banana. Started shakily but then dominated the South African attack. Got a wicket too.

Bell - 9.5. Also top banana. Chanceless 199.

Collingwood - 6. Difficult to give a score when he got such a bad decision. Might have scored heavily. Might have got out anyway. Who knows.

Ambrose - 4.5. Poor match for Tiny Tim. Failed with the bat and dropped a pretty standard catch.

Broad - 6. Some might think 6 is harsh but I'm not giving a bowler a high score because of his batting. He's there to bowl and shall be judged on that. Was OK.

Sidebottom - 6. Looked out of sorts (some sort of back injury?) but bowled Kallis with a good yorker. Bit worried about recovery time for the next Test. The younger bowlers should be OK but Sidebottom's no spring chicken and not exactly an athlete.

Anderson - 7.5. Was probably our best bowler. Superb economy and "good areas". I'm as shocked as the next person that he didn't get slapped on a flattie.

Panesar - 7. Was superb in SA's first innings but couldn't get much help from the pitch until it was too late.

Ian Bell 9.5? What? That was the worst 199 I have ever seen. 5 at best.

Thus spoke the troll.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Thus spoke the troll.

I don't speak. I type. Like all great prophets.

What a load of bollocks. How can Cook, a batsman who did his job by contributing some meaningful runs, get the same mark as Vaughan, a batsman who failed miserably but waved his arms around a lot in the field?

How many 199s have you seen anyway? One? It probably is the worst but it's probably the best too.

Dello wrote:What a load of bollocks. How can Cook, a batsman who did his job by contributing some meaningful runs, get the same mark as Vaughan, a batsman who failed miserably but waved his arms around a lot in the field?

Cook didn't get a jaffa and was pretty lucky.

Vaughan seems to get quite a lot of 'Jaffas'.....

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:

Dello wrote:What a load of bollocks. How can Cook, a batsman who did his job by contributing some meaningful runs, get the same mark as Vaughan, a batsman who failed miserably but waved his arms around a lot in the field?

Cook didn't get a jaffa and was pretty lucky.

So, you automatically get a "pass" mark even if you fail if, in your opinion, it was a good ball?

Shouldn't Broad's rating - which you've marked down for his bowling - also get bumped up due to the mitigating circumstances of his "failure": the pitch.

PearlJ wrote:Vaughan plays around a lot of straight ones.

Fixed.

Dello wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:

Dello wrote:What a load of bollocks. How can Cook, a batsman who did his job by contributing some meaningful runs, get the same mark as Vaughan, a batsman who failed miserably but waved his arms around a lot in the field?

Cook didn't get a jaffa and was pretty lucky.

So, you automatically get a "pass" mark even if you fail if, in your opinion, it was a good ball?

Shouldn't Broad's rating - which you've marked down for his bowling - also get bumped up due to the mitigating circumstances of his "failure": the pitch.

The inventive captaincy bumped him. Just like Broad's batting bumped him up.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:

Dello wrote:

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:

Dello wrote:What a load of bollocks. How can Cook, a batsman who did his job by contributing some meaningful runs, get the same mark as Vaughan, a batsman who failed miserably but waved his arms around a lot in the field?

Cook didn't get a jaffa and was pretty lucky.

So, you automatically get a "pass" mark even if you fail if, in your opinion, it was a good ball?

Shouldn't Broad's rating - which you've marked down for his bowling - also get bumped up due to the mitigating circumstances of his "failure": the pitch.

The inventive captaincy bumped him. Just like Broad's batting bumped him up.

How can Broad's batting have bumped him up when you gave him the same mark as Sidebottom, who he certainly didn't bowl any worse than, and who didn't contribute anything in the batting department?

Because I reckon Topbottom bowled better than Broad (bar a short spell on in SA's first innings). More wickets, better economy and got Kallis in both innings.

Strauss - 6. Got a start and got out. Was unlucky with the decision, but still missed the ball and forced the umpire into a decision. He looked in good form, but it does make me laugh a little when people describe him as unlucky when a marginal decision went against him because he didn't hit the ball.

Cook - 6.5. Typical, ugly Cook, but he was the one keeping the pressure off in the first session of the match and he allowed Strauss to play in his introverted manner. Cricket's about getting a score and he got a bigger one than Strauss. He edged a few through third man, but every opener does.

Vaughan - 4. His batting has been poor since he came back into the side. He got a beauty, et cetera, but that's just tough - he still didn't score any runs. His four marks come for his captaincy which was generally pro-active, marking a welcome return to the thinking Vaughan that had abandoned the side against New Zealand. Maybe he was bored.

Pietersen - 9. I personally thought he played the best innings of the match. It wasn't the biggest, but it was the most entertaining and it set the base for other players to build around him and set up the game. In scoring 91 runs in the Evening Session on the first day he ensured that South Africa were completely out of the game by the time he was out (in terms of winning it).

Bell - 9. An excellent innings, masterful perhaps. Shame to see him get out on 199, but such are the problems of Ian Bell. Played some lovely strokes and began the momentum shift that Pietersen finished. He was a little fortuitous with his start, but as I've already said on here, fortune is all well and good as long as you make the most of it.

Collingwood - 3. Another guy who got a rum 'un, but once again I stress that it is, quite simply, tough. He batted like an idiot for his 7 runs anyway and it was probably only a matter of time. Looks like a man on the way out, and deservedly so given his recent, prolonged slump.

Ambrose - 2. Dropped one of the few catches of any interest, and got out to a nothing ball in the process of scoring a very few runs. I'm neither his biggest fan nor his biggest critic, but after this performance I'm erring in favour of whoever it is who is the latter. His keeping looks mediocre and his batting looks worse. He's the wicket-keeping equivalent of Ashley Giles.

Broad - 5. Batted really well, et cetera, but it's often very easy to forget that he's a bowler as opposed to a batsman and is therefore expected to take wickets. So far in his England career, his bowling has been harmless and expensive and he continued that trend here. For some reason, he's obssessed with the short ball that he does not possess a knack for. I like his aggression and he has ability, but he's not really showing it at the minute.

Sidebottom - 6. Kept it tight and took a few wickets. Nothing spectacular but it was hard work. To say he was carrying an injury, I was reasonably impressed with his efforts throughout the Test.

Anderson - 7. He bowled really well without reward in both innings, keeping it unusually tight for a man who, more often than not, sprays the ball all over the place and is only saved if the ball is swinging. Like Sidebottom, he kept it tight, but unlike Sidebottom he actually seemed to have the pace and the accuracy to get a wicket. That it didn't happen doesn't reflect badly on him at all, for he showed ability and control that has hitherto been lacking in his performances from England.

Panesar - 7. Another one who toiled with varying degrees of success. He bowled beautifully and accurately throughout but was undone in the end by the sunshine that beat down incessantly and turned a pitch with a little bit of something into a damp squib (unfortunately not literally). Deserves great credit for two things. Firstly, for his first innings performance where he ground the middle-order down, and secondly for his long grind in the second innings that, for all its frustration, was hardly a terrible bowling display.

Lara Lara Laughs wrote:Because I reckon Topbottom bowled better than Broad (bar a short spell on in SA's first innings). More wickets, better economy and got Kallis in both innings.

What a farce.

4.5 for someone who failed with the bat.

6.5 for someone who failed with the bat but moved some fielders around.

6.5 for someone who scored 60 with the bat.

6 for someone who failed with the bat but got an unlucky decision.

7 for someone who made a solid 40 but got an unlucky decision.

6 for someone who scored 75 and toiled manfully on an unresponsive wicket with the ball.

6 for someone who didn't really bat and toiled manfully on an unresponsive wicket with the ball.

Farce.